-Down to Earth State plans to bring down its minimum wage rate to that under MGNREGA TO reduce the burden of the state exchequer by Rs 600 crore, Bihar has decided to reduce its minimum wage rate offered to unskilled labourers, and make it on a par with the rate offered under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). This is despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, in many cases, that...

-The Hindu For millions of slum dweller in Delhi, there is finally some reassuring news in the form of amendments brought in by the Delhi Government in its slum policy. As per a notification issued on February 25, this year, lakhs of slum dwellers would be benefited by the liberalised norms on their identification and entitlement for rehabilitation. Stating that it was the pressure mounted by the slum dwellers themselves which made the...

-The Telegraph Ranchi: The state information commission, mandated to ensure enactment of a sunshine law that aims to empower citizens by allowing access to crucial official documents and decisions has stopped work in Jharkhand as it has no officer to hear cases. Headed by chief information commissioner Justice (retired) D.K.Sinha, the commission is meant to have 10 information commissioners (IC) to hear cases filed under the Right to Information Act. But, all posts...

-The Hindu Bench attributes low female child ratio to lack of implementation of Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act Eliminating female foetus after pre-natal diagnostic tests has pushed the female child ratio down nationwide, the Supreme Court has observed. A Bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra blamed the practice on lack of implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition on Sex-Selection) Act. Both judges gave different, but concurring, judgments. Justice Radhakrishnan said:...

-Live Mint Evasion of duty of over Rs.50 lakh to be made non-bailable offence; arrest provisions under service tax proposed The government may find itself in hot water on budget proposals that make duty evasion beyond a certain threshold a non-bailable offence, allow arrest on suspected withholding of service tax, and provide tax authorities powers to recover dues from a defaulter’s bankers.   Although finance minister P. Chidambaram in his budget presentation on 28...